Former Hardcore, United States, and SmackDown Tag Team Champion Rhyno claims Edge and Christian aggressively rejected plans for him to originally be introduced as their little brother.
Former ECW Champion made his WWE debut in March of 2001. Just weeks before that year’s WrestleMania. The one-time star from the land of extreme was supposed to be an equalizer for Edge and Christian. Since their top rivals, The Dudley Boyz, had Spike Dudley, and the Hardy Boyz had Lita. However, he revealed recently that his character was originally going to be a lot different when he made his debut.
“They wanted to dye my hair and have me as their little brother,” Rhyno told “The False Finish” recently [h/t TJR Wretling]. “Adam [Copeland] and Jey [Reso] both went to them [WWE management] and said, ‘Listen, the fans are going to s*** all over this.”
WWE founder often wanted to re-imagine certain talent when they made their WWE debut, despite having established their name elsewhere. Making Lex Luger the Narcissist and Mick Foley Mankind are two perfect examples. Rhyno had become a notable star in ECW. And having his hair color changed and claiming he was Edge and Christian’s brother would have certainly annoyed smart fans in the fanbase.
Fortunately, that never happened. And WWE fans got to see the same character they saw or heard about in ECW when Rhyno made the jump to the top company in the promotion.
